With a tour of western Canada beginning next Saturday in Regina, WWE will also swing through Alberta with TV stops in Calgary on Aug. 10 (RAW) and Edmonton on Aug. 11 (Smackdown! and ECW).

It’ll be interesting to see how westerners react to the heelish Chris Jericho, who holds the tag title with new partner The Big Show. Jericho will do his best to agitate, but Canadian fans traditionally stick by him no matter what he does. Another Canuck, Christian, will be wearing his newly won ECW championship belt (he beat Tommy Dreamer at Night of Champions Sunday).

WWE will swing back through Canada in September, with a supershow in Ottawa on Sept. 12, the Breaking Point pay-per-view in Montreal on Sept. 13,a RAW in Toronto on Sept. 14 and a Smackdown!/ECW show in Hamilton on Sept. 15.

It’s good to see WWE finally recognize that Canada is still on the map. WWE superstars always rave about the electricity of Canadian crowds. It’s about time they got to experience that again.

AROUND WWE

Also at Night of Champions: Mickie James won the Divas title off the red-hot Maryse, who will be sidelined a few months after knee surgery this week; Randy Orton kept his WWE title by beating Triple H and John Cena; and Jeff Hardy beat CM Punk for the heavyweight strap ... WWE released The Brian Kendrick. He was doomed as soon as WWE added “The” and made him a heel ... Entourage’s Jeremy Piven is the next guest host of RAW. Last week’s host, Shaq, gave The Big Show a less-than-thundering shoulder block, but still did a great job.

AROUND TNA

On Impact, The British Invasion beat Team 3D to win the IWGP tag titles, while Mick Foley won the Legends title from Kevin Nash in some sort of tag match including Bobby Lashley and Kurt Angle ... Reports suggest Elijah Burke has joined or will soon join TNA.
MR. KENNEDY SPEAKS
Give Ken Anderson (the former Mr. Kennedy) credit for being straight up: He says: “Vince McMahon didn’t screw Mr. Kennedy. WWE didn’t screw Mr. Kennedy. Ken Anderson screwed Mr. Kennedy.